Friday, March 29, 2024

Coaxing Poems 10: Love those Words

Hello, dear Poem Friends! Welcome to the final of ten poetry video visits here at The Poem Farm. In each of these short clips, I have shared a small something about poetry, and you will always be able to find the poem(s) I read below the video. If you wish, you may watch the earlier videos linked below:

COAXING POEMS VISITS:


Students - Throughout this series of visits, we have talked about many different aspects of poetry, and today we end on the smallest level, the single word. I love thinking about how English has only 26 letters, yet these letters make up all of our English words and thus, all of our English poems and articles and books. I even wrote a poem about this magic in my book WRITE! WRITE! WRITE!, titled "Alphabet."

In the companion book to WRITE! WRITE! WRITE!, READ! READ! READ!, I include a poem about a word collection. This poem grew from the many word collections that I keep in notebooks. Keeping such collections is a way to treasure-hunt and cherish words, to use them for inspiration and to pay attention to sound. Below you may see one of the word collections I have made over the years. I encourage you to try keeping such a collection; it is interesting to see how your most-loved words change and how they also stay the same.

One of Many Word Collections
Photo by Amy LV

Color Spot Seen on a Walk
Photo by Amy LV


This short free verse poem includes a bit of wordfun. I like imagining that I might be the only person to have described an orange punchbuggy as a pudgy orange lollipop car and that perhaps I invented the term zipzoops. Color-happy is a hyphenated word that is usually not hyphenated. But you see, my friends, when you write...you may play!

Writers DECIDE to not write that a car is parked and to instead write that a car naps. We can see with our eyes and too, we can giggle with these very same eyes. Understand how words work, and then, dear writers, make them work in new ways.

So, collect words!

And too, reread your writing word-by-word, paying attention to the ways your words sound and mean in your poems. If you find yourself writing something in a way you have heard it said many times, go ahead and revise it to sound new. Then, give yourself a hug for doing so. Revision isn't always easy, but it often lifts a poem from a mudpuddle into a hot air balloon for a surprising ride!

Words are small, free collectable, sharable friends. Get to know them.

Tricia is hosting this week's Poetry Friday over at The Miss Rumphius Effect. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

I thank you for joining me on this journey through 10 visits of Coaxing Poems. National Poetry Month begins on Monday...April Fool's Day! I welcome you to join me throughout April as I take on another month-long poem writing project.

xo,

Amy

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Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Coaxing Poems 9: Time for Rhyme

Well...hello there Poem Friends! Welcome to the ninth of ten poetry video visits here at The Poem Farm. In each of these short clips, I will share a small something about poetry, and you will always be able to find the poem(s) I read below the video. If you wish, you may watch the earlier videos linked below:

COAXING POEMS VISITS:

And here is Visit 9: Time for Rhyme:


Students - Today we think about rhyme. Rhyme gives poetry a special sound, and many poets enjoy rhyming to create a mood or a feeling of repetition, song, or comfort for readers. I like to rhyme, and when I do, I like to be sure that my rhymes make sense. I do not want anyone to really notice the rhymes at all, actually. If a rhyme doesn't make sense, fit together, or seem to mean anything, like the one below, a reader might shake their head and think, "Well, that's weird." If I tried to write something for the purpose of weirdness, that's good, but otherwise, such weird head shaking is usually not a good sign.

I like eating sweet cupcakes.
I do not ride bikes in lakes.
In an earthquake, the earth shakes.

Morning Tea
Photo by Amy LV


I do use a few techniques to help me with rhymes:
  • Jot the alphabet and make lists of rhyming words from the alphabet (see below).
  • Use Rhymezone or a paper rhyming dictionary. Make lists of the sense-making rhymes.
  • If I cannot find a strong rhyme for the word I wish to rhyme with, try changing that word to a different word that may have more rhymes. (But don't choose a not-so-good substitute!)
  • Read each pair or set of rhymes in my poem to be sure they make sense. I do not want rhymes to draw attention to themselves.
  • Ask someone to read my poem aloud and not comment. Listen and see if it needs changes.
  • Ask someone to read my poem to see "Am I forcing the rhyme?" 
Below you can see where I have jotted the alphabet and made lists of rhyming words from it. You may also notice that the poem below is written in quatrains (four line stanzas) but that I chose to change to couplets (two line stanzas) when I typed it up. Line breaks (remember Coaxing Poems Visit 6: Give it Space) matter.

When you make your own poems, you will make many decisions and ask yourself many questions. One of these questions may be, "Do I wish to rhyme...or not?" And only you know the answer.


Thank you for joining me for Visit 9 of Coaxing Poems. May your days ahead be full of fine rhyme...

xo,
Amy

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Friday, March 22, 2024

Coaxing Poems 8: Tap it Out

Sweet greetings to you, my Poem Friends! Welcome to the eighth of ten poetry video visits here at The Poem Farm. In each of these short clips, I will share a small something about poetry, and you will always be able to find the poem(s) I read below the video. If you wish, you may watch the earlier videos linked below:

COAXING POEMS VISITS:

And now I am pleased to share Visit 8: Tap it Out:

Students - While most of this series has focused on meaning making in our poems, today's visit centers on sound. The sound of a beat, the tapping, the rhythm in our blood as we read and dance and move to a poem or song.

Spring Lions
by Amy LV


I love playing with meter, rhythm, and beat. One way I do this is by borrowing the meter of another poem or song and bringing my own ideas to it. Sometimes, when my writing is finished, I'll sing it...and sometimes I will just leave my lines as a poem, and no one will ever know that it is singable.

When I do this, I usually write out the poem or song that I am using as my "meter model," and count the syllables for each line, noting the number at the beginning or ending of each line. Then, this guides me in the writing of my own verse. Sometimes I copy the numbers down on a new blank page, right at the ends of where my own lines will go to help me write each line in the same rhythm as my model.

Then, as I write, line-by-line, I tap my fingers on the table or my shoulder and if my model is a song, I sing my poem to see if my words and syllables (and stresses, or the stronger or emphasized syllables) sound right.

On my notebook pages below, you can see where I have writen out a few little well-known tunes and their syllable counts.

Counting Song Syllables
Photo by Amy LV

You can try this same thing. It helps to start with a simple tune, matching each line of what you write to the sound of the tune you choose. It may even help to write your first meter-model poem together with a class, clapping and tapping syllables together. It can take a little while to get used to doing this, but once you start, you will find yourself tapping everywhere!

I often think about how wonderful it would be to be a musician and to invent new song rhythms, singing them along with new words, and I have been fortunate to have some friends who do this. Some of you have heard songs by my friends Barry Lane and Gart Westerhouse. These musicians write their own material and sometimes set the words of others to music too. It is an honor for me when they write music to my words, and in a way, it's the inside out process of what I do when I set poems to others' music. Here are a couple of pieces for you to enjoy by these friends. I share them with my gratitude to Gart and Barry:

Barry Lane sings THE SOUND OF KINDNESS, my latest book.

Gart Westerhouse plays piano and sings "In the Dark of Morning," a free verse poem shared here at The Poem Farm.

For those of you who are interested in music, you may wish to do this yourself - find some words (by you or another) and make a tune to go with them. If you play an instrument, experiment with bringing your instrument into the party too.

Thank you to Truman Elementary in Lackawanna, NY and Lindbergh Elementary in Kenmore, NY for the lovely visits this month. I am smiling away over here remembering our time together.

The final two Coaxing Poems videos will be up by month's end as once April begins, I will begin my (as yet unchosen) National Poetry Month Project.

Rose is hosting this week's Poetry Friday over at Imagine the Possibilities with a joyful nod to spring and its birds. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

May you tap your way through the week ahead!

xo,

Amy

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Friday, March 1, 2024

Coaxing Poems 7: Choose a View

Hello again, my Poem Friends! Welcome to the seventh of ten poetry visits here at The Poem Farm. In each of these short videos, I will share a small something about poetry, and you will always be able to find the poem(s) I read below the video. If you wish, you may watch the earlier videos linked below:

COAXING POEMS VISITS:

Please make yourself comfy for Visit 7: Choose a View.

Students - Today's visit is all about choosing a view, deciding who to be and where to stand in any piece of writing. This is something we do in all writing, not just poetry. Do remember that most all of these writing teachings cross genres, and what we learn in our poetry writing, we bring to our prose. I so believe in bringing our poetry understandings to other forms of writing that I wrote a book about this idea - POEMS ARE TEACHERS: HOW STUDYING POETRY STRENGTHENS WRITING IN ALL GENRES (2017).


As you learned in the video, my poemdrafts for this week are all about the character of Little Miss Muffet. I wrote about her in many different ways, choosing a different view, or point of view, for each poem.

Draft, First Person as Miss Muffet
Photo by Amy LV

Early on in writing a poem, you will choose a view - or decide who to write as or to in your poem. Will you be yourself or a different character? Will you address someone in your poem or your readers directly? Will you write from a little distance? Remember that you may just make this choice without thinking a lot about it. But it still helps to understand what is going on behind the scenes of your and others' writing. Keep these possibilities in mind:

First Person - This is where you write in the I voice. You may be you or another, but you write using I. You might write AS someone or something else or you might write TO someone or something else using the word I in your poem. Writing TO someone or something not present in a poem is called apostrophe or a poem of address.

Second Person - This is where you write in the YOU voice. In certain lines of your poem, you speak directly to your reader with word YOU. This point of view invites the reader right into the world of your poem.

Third Person - This is where you write in the HE/SHE/IT/THEY voice. You are speaking about someone or something from a wee bit of distance. You are not the one speaking, nor are you speaking to a particular person object. Rather, you are telling ABOUT it.

Below, you will find four poems about Little Miss Muffet, each from a different viewpoint.

Here is my first person poem about Little Miss Muffet. You will note that I am writing AS Little Miss Muffet in the I voice. First person poems can be in our own voices, but when we write in the voice of another, such poems are called persona poems.

Below is another poem in the first person I voice, but this time I chose to write TO Little Miss Muffet rather than AS her. I am being me and using the I voice as I speak to Little Miss Muffet. I am using the word YOU, but not speaking to the readers. I am speaking to Miss Muffet herself. A poem that speaks to someone or something not actually here is called an apostrophe or a poem of address.

This next poem is in the third person voice. Notice how I use the word THEY to describe what Alice and Mary are doing. I am not writing AS them or TO them, but rather ABOUT them.



And in this final poem, I write in the second person, addressing readers using the word YOU.

Choosing a view - or point of view - offers a writer possibilities. When we write as someone or something, we will discover different ideas than when we write to or about this person or thing. I recommend writing a few different drafts, as I did, all around the same subject but taking different viewpoints for each one. Remember, no need to rhyme!

As you read your independent reading books or when you read books together, take a moment to consider the point of view. Who is telling the story? How does the point of view change the story?

Linda is hosting this week's Poetry Friday over at TeacherDance with an original acrostic poem about choices and kindness. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

Here's to a week filled with interesting, beautiful, quirky, and magical views. And if we have sad views, may they help make us kinder souls.

xo,

Amy

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Friday, February 16, 2024

Coaxing Poems 6: Give it Space

 

Greetings to you dear and funny Poetry Friends! Welcome to the sixth of ten poetry visits here at The Poem Farm. In each of these short videos, I will share a small something about poetry, and you will always be able to find the poem(s) I read below the video. If you wish, you may watch the earlier videos linked below:

COAXING POEMS VISITS:

Please make yourself comfy for Visit 6: Give it Space.

Students - Line breaks and stanzas create the space in our poems. They are the air our poems need to breathe. See, to not make space inside of a poem is to stuff the poem into an airless jar, and we do not want our poems to live inside of airless jars. 

Pinecone Treasures
Photo by Amy LV


You may have noticed that I played even more with the line breaks - and the words - of this poem between recording the video and typing it up here. I decided to break this poem into two stanzas...one about the pinecones without the boy and one about the boy and his pinecone plans.

Below you can see some of my drafting for this poem. Messy, isn't it? Real work often is, so please do not worry about neatnes in your first drafts. Allow the messy thinking part of writing to be part of your work.

Now, notice the slashes. Those idicate where I chose to break my lines. If you ever write a poem that looks like a paragraph, or if you do not like the line breaks you first choose, know that you can change them. Simply draw slash marks to show where you will move to new lines in your recopy/typing of the work. 

Some Messy Pinecone Drafting
Photo by Amy LV

Here again, as in the video, you can see thre ways I considered breaking up that first sentence of the poem. You may have made choices than I did with these words, and this is one part of what makes writing interesting: we each do it our own way based on who we are.

A Few Line Break Possibilities
Photo by Amy LV

Consider breaking a line (going to a new line) in your poem if:
  • You wish for your readers to pause for a moment
  • You wrote line you wish to repeat exactly the same way
  • A new voice is speaking
  • You want the words and motion of your poem to match each other
  • One line - or word - is very important, deserving of its own line
If you wish for a greater pause or to show a more important change or shift as I did in today's poem, you might move to to a new stanza to help your readers feel this change as they read.

The space in a poem matters. As you write a poem, say this to yourself: Give it space.

Margaret is hosting this week's Poetry Friday over at Reflections on the Teche with two poems that span the human experience from love to grief. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

I wish you - and your poems - the healthy beauty of space in the week ahead.

xo,

Amy

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Friday, February 2, 2024

Coaxing Poems 5: Tell Us a Story

 

Hello again, you sweet Poetry Friends! Welcome to the fifth of ten poetry visits at The Poem Farm. In each of these short videos, I will share a small something about poetry, and you will always be able to find the poem(s) I read below the video. If you wish, you may watch the earlier videos linked below:

COAXING POEMS VISITS:

And now I invite you to join me for Visit 5: Tell Us a Story!

Students - Today, as we think about about story poems - narrative poems - we simply think about all of the elements of story and mix them elegantly with all of the elements of poetry. Think of it this way:

Plot, Characters, & Setting + Line Breaks, Pattern, & Metaphor... = Story Poem

Story Poem Still Life
Photo by Amy LV

In this first free verse story poem, I invent a character related to a character we all know. I invent the problem and the setting for this character. The poem also has a problem, solution, beginning, middle, and end. 

You may notice the repeated words and the places where I chose to move to a new line. As (mostly) always, I drafted this poem by hand. In the revision, I experimented with my line breaks. The enter key is very helpful for poets who do some revision at the computer.


The below poem is about characters who usually do not talk at all - Rain and a flower. When we write story poems, we can include dialogue, just as we include dialogue in our prose (not poem) stories. Can you find the places where characters speak in this poem?

This poem and the next do include a bit of rhyme, rhyme that makes sense. I am not striving to rhyme with this series, but truth be told, sometimes...like a baby fox, rhyme sneaks in under the wire fence of my free verse intentions.


This next poem is in the I (first person) voice. A reader might assume that the speaker is actually me, but as writers, we can use the I voice as ourselves or we can write in the I voice pretending to be someone or something else. I have been thinking about the idea of a "word bouquet" for a couple of weeks now. Sometimes a thought needs to live in our notebook and mind for a while before finding its way into a poem or story.

What do you notice about the line breaks in this poem? What do the short lines do for a reader?


As you read and write story (narrative) poems, talk with each other about the following:
  • Who are the characters?
  • What is the setting?
  • Is there a problem? If yes, what is it?
  • How does the problem get solved?
  • What happens at the beginning, middle end?
  • Do the characters change?

Talk about these too:
  • Does this story (narrative) poem feel like it could really happen?
  • Is this a fiction story?
  • Might this story be a blend of fiction and truth?
  • Is this poem based in history?

And these:
  • What do we notice about the line breaks?
  • Does the poet repeat any lines? Why so?
  • Do we find any interesting repetition?
  • Are there metaphors? Are they fresh?
  • What language dance moves do we admire in this poem?
  • What makes this poem "poem-y?"

As you think and talk about these questions, you will discover ideas for your own poems. When writers read, we learn new writing ideas, especially when we try.

One reason I enjoy writing poems so much is because the words simply surprise me on the page. If I did not write poems, I would never have met Little Red Riding Hood's younger brother or heard a conversation between Rain and a flower or written the words "jam jar vase." An afternoon of writing offered me these gifts.

Poems cannot be wrong. Yes, if we read and write many poems, there will be poems we prefer...but poems are not wrong. Experiment! Play with your life and with your words. We each get one life and as many words as we wish - we can choose joy in our lives and in our words.

Mary Lee is hosting this week's Poetry Friday over at A(nother) Year of Reading with thoughts and a poem about secrets. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

Happy story-collecting, my dears...

xo,

Amy

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Friday, January 26, 2024

Coaxing Poems 4: Abracadabra!

 

Hello again my dear Poetry Friends, and welcome to the fourth of ten little poetry visits starting off the New Year at The Poem Farm. In each of these short videos, I will share a small something about poetry, and you will always be able to find the poem(s) I read below the video. You can find the earlier videos linked below and you may wish to watch those first:

COAXING POEMS VISITS:

And now I invite you to join me for Visit 4, Abracadabra!


Students - The whole world feels more interesting when we practice comparing various objects and feelings to different things we know in life. We find one way that two things are alike, tap our magic writing wands, and we turn one thing into another, right on the page. In this way, writing is magic. We see things anew, and we pass these surprising images on to our readers.

Here you can see the notebook page where I remembered some metaphors I have written before and came up with some new ones too. I have never written such a metaphor list in my notebook, but I think do this more often as I found it quite helpful.

Metaphor Notebook Page
Photo by Amy LV

Enjoy these two short, non-rhyming poems centered on metaphor, each comparing one thing to another. As a writer, it is my hope that each poem, even without a matching photo, will give readers a new way to see a familiar object.

When I was a little girl, I used to suck on lemons. Perhaps this is why I wished to write about citrus fruit. 

Orange Snack
Photo by Amy LV


The below poem, about my kitty Claude, focuses on just one object that I compare him to - a throw pillow. But truth be told, I compare Claude to many things. He is fast and quiet and hazy-furry, so sometimes I call him a ghost, and sometimes I call him a cloud. Perhaps I should make a page in my notebook for all of the different things I compare Claude to in the world.

Claude on the Couch
Photo by Amy LV


One last note to you about metaphors. You will read many metaphors in books and hear many people use metaphors in speech. Sometimes these are used so often that they lose their freshness. When I write in metaphor, I try not to use metaphors I have read or heard often, such as "He was a quiet mouse" or "Her anger was a thunderstorm." The work of a writer is to dig into our own strange and beautiful selves and find brand new ways of seeing old things. And when we come upon such a comparison...it is joyously surprising for our writing selves. We don't want our metaphors to be stale like week-old doughnuts.

In travel news, thank you so much to the Heights Elementary School community in Oakland, NJ for inviting me to visit this week. It was a joy to share some writing with you and to see the photographs of all of the projects you made with your own hands. I wish you much happiness in your own writing journeys.

Author Visit to Heights Elementary School
Photo by Librarian Stacy Contreras

Susan is hosting this week's Poetry Friday over at Chicken Spaghetti with a new year piñata poem inspired by a news article. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

Remember that you are a writing magician, and with a brilliant flash of your pen, you can turn one thing....into another. 

Poof!

xo,

Amy

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